From Oregon to Arizona

September really seemed to fly by as we were busy all month. On Labor Day, our across the street neighbors in Merrill stopped to see us as they had business in Bend and stopped on the way home. What a pleasant surprise! We had a good visit before they went on their way home.

We took the bike to La Pine for our chiro appt. and then brought back 50 lbs of table salt for our water softener. We split the bag in two using black garage bags and put half in each saddle bag. Worked out well—who would have thought we could do that?!

We had supper with the folks in the Prevost in front of us and what a feast it was! They have a garden in Portland and nearly everything was from their garden; fresh corn on the cob, big Brandywine tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, cabbage, onions and pork loin from their butchered pig. Their have a care home and are used to cooking for sixteen people so there was lots left over which they shared with us. What a blessing that was!

Our friends, Rosie and Forrest, came to visit for two days staying in the rental log cabin at Cascade Meadows. We shared our meals and had good visits each day. It is always good to see them especially since Rosie nearly died in Jan. 2011.

Our friends, Forrest and Rosie.>>>

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
On Tues before we left, our friend, Ron, stopped to see us on his way to Gold Beach. We seem to catch up with him often as he winters in Yuma and we have seen him there the last few winters.

We left Cascade Meadows on Thurs Sept 13 and stayed overnight in the old WalMart parking lot in Fallon, NV. There is a new Party Store in part of the building but we parked away from it. We like parking there as Safeway and Bank of America are in the same shopping center and we ‘visited’ both of them. We stayed in Pahrump, NV for six days as we like to visit the Nugget 2-4-1 buffet and Larry gets his years supply of fried bacon! It also gave him time to adjust to the altitude change as the doctor said to take it slowly as we went from 4,100 ft to eventually 1000 ft in Phoenix. While we were in Pahrump we discovered we had a leak in the kitchen sink drain. Actually we discovered it while on the road from CM to Pahrump. Larry poured something down the drain and it all ran on the floor! That kept Larry busy while we were at Preferred RV in Pahrump. The drain pipe broke in half right where the slide goes in and out. After sleeping on it and trying to figure out how to fix the pipe without tearing the coach apart, Larry again did a great job and reinforced the connection with a welded brace to hold the pipe up so we won’t have that problem again hopefully. The brace keeps the pressure off the drain pipe when the slide goes in and out and nine years of use was too much for just a plastic pipe with no support.

Where the drain pipe broke in two.

The fixed drain pipe, better than new! >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> We arrived at Camp Verde, AZ around 4 PM on Thursday Sept 20 to find the office closes at 1 PM in the summer season. The night host was very nice and we ended up in a pull thru non-sewer site so we have been using the restrooms behind us and the laundry. We will be leaving here on the 4th to head to TTN Verde Valley (10 miles down the road) and we are doing well with our waste water tanks and won’t have to dump until we get to TTN. Friends, Art and Faye, who we haven’t seen in four years were here when we arrived and are now at TTN so we will get together with them after we move on Thurs. They have a new MH so it is a good thing they recognized us!

Saturday Sept 22 we went to HOT (107º) Phoenix for our granddaughter, Cerét's wedding. She was a lovely bride and it was great seeing the family again. The wedding was outside at the Japanese Friendship Gardens which are lovely but would have been nicer if it had been cooler. There was absolutely no breeze and I really felt bad for the guys in suits! The reception was very nice, again outside, but we managed to stay inside much of the time in A/C. (The Japanese Gardens had no buildings except restrooms and they were not air conditioned.) We arrived back home about midnight and enjoyed watching the temp outside going down as we left the Valley of the Sun. (It went from 90º as we were leaving Phoenix around 10:15 PM to 68º as we arrived at Camp Verde.)

Cerét pumped up coming down the aisle with her Dad, Todd

Cerét's brothers were her attendants and Adam had his brother and a cousin as attendants

Grandma and the new bride

Adam signing the marriage license and the radiant bride posing with her bouquet of yellow roses

Dad and daughter dance at the reception that got to both of them.>

The wedding cake. It was yummy!>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> On Thursday Sept 27 we went to Prescott to see Larry’s mom. We took her a piece of wedding cake and some mints from the wedding. We also showed her all the pictures Larry took with his i-phone. She had wanted to go but realized she just won’t be able to last all day (we left at 2 PM) and she would have ended up in the hospital because of the heat. She has a defibulator/pacemaker combo and the doctor told her to avoid extreme temperatures.

Our campsite at Camp Verde RV Park with the laundry and restroom building in the back.>>>>

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Friday night Sept 28 we went to Valley View Restaurant in Camp Verde to see the “Hired Hands” and enjoy the Friday night ‘all you can eat fish fry’. We have followed the Hired Hands for twelve years as they used to perform at TTN Verde Valley and Camp Verde RV Park but with the recent changes in the economy and RV park ownership, they are no longer performing in RV parks. (They would go to UT, OR and WA in the summer and we have seen them in the northwest also.) We learned another one of our friends had died and his funeral was Sat the 29th so we were able to go and encourage his wife. He was diagnosed with liver cancer and three weeks to the day he was diagnosed, he died. Larry said, just don’t get diagnosed and you will be OK!